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abramdemski comments on Causal Reference - Less Wrong
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Epiphenominal theories of consciousness are kind of silly, but here's another situation I can wonder about... some cellular automata rules, including the Turing-complete Conway's Game of Life, can have different "pasts" that can lead to the same present. From the point of view of a being living in such a universe (one in which information can be destroyed), is there a fact of the matter as to which "past" actually happened?
I am unable to see the appeal of a view in which there is no fact of the matter. It seems to me that there is a fact of the matter concerning the past, even if it is impossible for us to know. This is not similar to the case where sneezing alters two shadow variables, and it is impossible for us to meaningfully refer to variable 1 as opposed to variable 2; the past has a structure, so assertions will typically have definite referents.